The operation was in the works for more than a decade, two former Israeli intelligence officials told CBS
The Israeli intelligence agency (Mossad) spent more than a decade preparing the operation that resulted in pager and walkie-talkie explosions across Lebanon in September, CBS reported over the weekend, after interviewing two recently retired senior agents who apparently spearheaded the effort.
Mossad first started to work with walkie-talkies, according to CBS sources. The intelligence agency designed a battery for them that contained an explosive device and later infiltrated the supply chain through a string of shell companies to hide its traces.
“We create a pretend world. We are a global production company: We write the screenplay, we’re the directors, we’re the producers, we’re the main actors,” one of the former agents said. Eventually, the Israeli operatives reportedly sold over 16,000 of the exploding walkie-talkies to the Lebanese-based militant group Hezbollah, according to the report.
The Israeli intelligence services did not stop at that and aimed for devices that the Hezbollah members would have on them “at all times” next, CBS said. That is how pagers came into play in 2022. According to the two former agents, the agency had run numerous tests to determine the exact number of explosives needed to injure a pager owner with almost no collateral damage.
The devices designed by Mossad reportedly had no intelligence capabilities and could not be used for tracking or surveillance. “There’s almost no way how to tap it,” one of the former operatives said, adding that the pagers were essentially just small bombs.
Mossad found out that Hezbollah was buying the devices from a company based in Taiwan, Gold Apollo. It then set up more shell companies, including one in Hungary, to dupe Gold Apollo into cooperation, without sharing any of its plans with the company in Taiwan. The spy agency fully manufactured the pagers that were then sold through its licensed partnership with Gold Apollo.
The intelligence service even hired the company’s saleswoman dealing with Hezbollah to promote their product. It also went on a massive fake ad campaign on YouTube and elsewhere on the internet that even included fake online testimonials verifying their pagers’ quality.
“When [Hezbollah] are buying from us, they have zero clue that they are buying from the Mossad. We make like the ‘Truman Show,’ everything is controlled by us behind the scene,” one of the former agents said. By September 2024, the Lebanese-based movement had around 5,000 pagers on their hands, according to CBS.
All of these efforts were aimed at crippling and scaring their foes, the former agents admitted. “We want them to feel vulnerable, which they are,” a former Mossad operative said. Another said the intelligence agency wanted people caught up in the plot to serve as a living warning to Israel’s adversaries.
“Those people without hands and eyes are living proof, walking in Lebanon, of ‘don't mess with us,’” he told CBS. The September 17 attacks killed at least 42 people, including 12 civilians – and injured over 3,500, including women and children. West Jerusalem had denied any involvement in the incidents for months until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed responsibility for the attacks in mid-November.
The scheme drew international condemnation, with UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk calling it a “shocking” and “unacceptable” act that violates human rights laws. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called it a “glaring example of terrorist methods.”
